A Torah Tale of Two Mountains

Dear Friends,

Our people were given the
mitzvah – Divine mandate –
to make a pilgrimage to the
Holy Sanctuary three times a
year. The Torah states that
this pilgrimage should take
place on, “the Festival of
Matzos, the Festival of
Shavuos, and the Festival of
Succos” (Deuteronomy 16:16).
When the Holy Sanctuary was
established in Jerusalem
through the building of the
Temple on Mount Moriah, our
people made the pilgrimage
to Mount Moriah.

I would like to ask the
following question: Why were
we not given a mitzvah to
make a pilgrimage to Mount
Sinai? At the very least, we
should have been told to
make the pilgrimage to Mount
Sinai for the Festival of
Shavuos, when we celebrate
the giving of the Torah at
Mount Sinai. I would like to
suggest that the beginning
of an answer can be found in
the following statement of
Moshe, our teacher, to our
people. “See! I have taught
you statutes and social
laws, as Hashem, my God, has
commanded me, to do so in
the midst of the Land to
which you come” (Deuteronomy
4:5).

The goal of the Revelation
of the Torah on Mount Sinai
is to fulfill the Torah in
the Land! We were reminded
of this spiritual goal when
we made the pilgrimage to
the Holy Temple on Mount
Moriah, for within the Holy
of Holies of the Temple was
the Ark of the Covenant, and
within the Ark were the
Tablets of the Covenant that
we received at Mount Sinai.
On the Tablets of the
Covenant were written the
Ten Commandments, and
according to the Zohar, the
classical work on the hidden
wisdom of the Torah, the Ten
Commandments are the
underlying principles of all
the mitzvos of the Torah (Yisro
93b). Within the Ark was
also the Torah scroll
transcribed by Moshe, and
according to another view,
this scroll was placed on a
board protruding from the
Ark (Baba Basra 14a-b).

Within one of the courtyards
of the Temple on Mount
Moriah was the Chamber of
Hewn Stone where the Supreme
Court of Torah Sages – later
known as the Sanhedrin –
guided our people through
their Torah teachings and
through their decisions
regarding the halacha, the
detailed requirements of the
Torah path. The Temple on
Mount Moriah is to therefore
serve as a center of Torah –
the Divine Teaching. This is
why it contains the Ark of
the Covenant with the
Tablets of the Covenant, the
Torah, and the chamber for
the Supreme Court of Torah
Sages. In this spirit, Rabbi
Samson Raphael Hirsch
reminds us that the Temple
is the “House of the Torah”
(commentary to Exodus
23:19).

“Mount Moriah” – The Midrash
explains that the name
“Moriah” is related to the
word “hora’ah” – teaching. A
reason why this mountain was
called “Moriah” is because
from this sacred site, the
teachings of the Torah will
eventually go out “to the
world” (Genesis Rabbah
55:7). The Midrash adds that
“Moriah” is also related to
the word “ohr” – light;
thus, another reason why the
Temple Mount was called
“Moriah” is because from
this sacred site, light will
go out “to the world”
(ibid). In his commentary on
this Midrash, Rashi explains
that this spiritual light
will come from “the
Sanhedrin in the Chamber of
Hewn Stone”; moreover, Rashi
mentions that the Prophet
Isaiah alludes to this light
when he proclaimed, “For
from Zion will go forth
Torah” (Isaiah 2:3). These
teachings reveal that the
spiritual and universal
purpose of the Revelation on
Mount Sinai is to be
fulfilled through the Temple
– the house of the Torah on
Mount Moriah. We therefore
make the pilgrimage to Mount
Moriah, and not to Mount
Sinai.

The Chofetz Chaim, a leading
sage of the late 19th and
early 20th centuries, offers
a related teaching which can
give us another perspective
on why we make the
pilgrimage to Mount Moriah
and not to Mount Sinai. He
explains that the People of
Israel are a holistic unity
of body and soul, and he
writes:

“The soul of Israel is the
holy Torah, and the body of
Israel is the Land of
Israel.” (Chofetz Chaim on
the Torah, Parshas Bo)

Just as the soul needs the
body in order to fulfill its
mission in this world, so
too, the Torah needs the
Land of Israel in order to
fulfill its mission in this
world. This is why the
Chofetz Chaim reminds us
that many mitzvos of the
Torah can only be fulfilled
in the Land (ibid).

The soul reveals the higher
purpose of the body, and the
Torah reveals the higher
purpose of the Land of
Israel. “But the Land of
Israel without the Torah,”
stresses the Chofetz Chaim,
“is a body without a soul”
(ibid). We therefore need
the harmonious interaction
of the soul and the body –
the Torah and the Land of
Israel. The Chofetz Chaim
finds an allusion to this
idea in the following
statement where Hashem
proclaims that He is the
One, “Who firmed the land
and its produce, Who gave a
soul to the people upon it”
(Isaiah 42:5).

If we would make the
pilgrimage to Mount Sinai
where we received the Torah,
we would be journeying to
the place which represents
the soul of our people, but
not the body. When, however,
we make the pilgrimage to
the Temple on Mount Moriah,
the center of the Torah
within the Land of Israel,
we are journeying to the
place which represents the
holistic unity of our body
and soul!

Throughout our long and
painful exile, we yearned
for the rebuilding of the
Temple on Mount Moriah so
that we can once again
experience this holistic
pilgrimage. We therefore
sing the following words at
the Shabbos table:

“May the Temple be rebuilt;
may the City of Zion be full
of pilgrims; there we shall
sing a new song, and with
joyous singing ascend!” (Tzur
MeShelo)

Have a Good and Sweet
Shabbos,
Yosef Ben Shlomo Hakohen
(See below)

Related “Soul” Teachings:

1. Rabbi Samson Raphael
Hirsch was a leading 19th
century sage and biblical
commentator. In his famous
work, “The Nineteen Letters”
(Letter 8), he wrote that we
became a nation at Mount
Sinai “whose soul was
Torah.” He also wrote:

“A land, prosperity, and the
institutions of statehood
were to be put at Israel’s
disposal not as goals in
themselves, but as means for
the fulfillment of the
Torah. Accordingly, they
were all granted to Israel
on one – and only one –
condition: that it would
indeed fulfill the Torah.”
(Ibid)

2. The followers of Rabbi
Hirsch opposed the attempts
of the World Zionist
Organization to have
nationalism replace the
Torah as the guiding spirit
of our people. The followers
of Rabbi Hirsch also had a
major role in the
establishment of Agudath
Israel, an international
Chareidi organization which
stressed that the Torah is
the soul of our people.
Agudath Israel was founded
by leading Torah sages,
including the Chofetz Chaim.
The first president of
Agudath Israel, Moreinu
Yaakov Rosenheim, was a
follower of Rabbi Hirsch’s
teachings. When he spoke at
the founding conference in
1912, he said:

“The aim of Agudath Israel
is to revive an ancient
Jewish possession: the
traditional concept of Klal
Yisrael – Israel’s
collective body, animated
and sustained by its Torah
as the organizing soul.”
(The Struggle and the
Splendor)

3. As we learned, the Temple
on Mount Moriah reminds us
of the holistic unity of
Israel’s soul and body. It
also reminds us of the
holistic unity of the human
being’s soul and body, for
there is a tradition that
the human being –a
combination of body and soul
– was created at the site of
the future Temple in Zion.

This tradition is cited by
Maimonides in his code of
Torah law, Mishneh Torah,
where he states that the
human being was created at
the site of the altar of the
Temple on Mount Moriah (Beis
Habechirah 2:2). The
tradition that the human
being was created at the
site of the Temple is cited
in Midrash Genesis Rabbah
(14:8), and in Pirkei
D’Rabbi Eliezer, at the
beginning of Chapter 12.

The human being was created
as a unity of body and soul,
as it is written:

“And Hashem God formed the
human of dust from the
ground, and He blew into his
nostrils the soul of life;
and the human became a
living being.” (Genesis 2:7)

4. The body was created to
serve the soul, and Rabbeinu
Bachya, a noted sage and
biblical commentator of the
13th century, writes:

“When the body assists the
soul, both are united in the
service of Hashem, the
Blessed One.” (Kad HaKemach
– Atzeres)